These big, beefy parking blocks are located about a 100 miles east of San Diego, near the Republic of Slowjamistan. The pictures don’t show how big they are. I didn’t have a ruler with me but I estimate they are a good 10″ tall. The sole paved spot outside of restrooms in Ocotillo Wells State Vehicular Recreation Area.

Check out Dan Bourqui’s Downhill Disco edit: The Downhill Disco is an yearly San Diego event which mixes disco music with longboarding, downhill skating, jump ramps and even a smaller megaramp like gap. It also features a mini ramp jam, disco night and Sunday races that are not showcased in this video clip. The entire event feels more like a weekend festival than a contest.

New video from Dan Bourqui: “insane vert skating and some tricks, riders and runs that were not in the other videos, plus a full demo on how to skate a vert ramp padless, by Chris Russell”

The Morro Bay Skateboard Museum is in the middle of their annual fundraising campaign, which includes a screening of the Signal Hill Speed Run documentary at the Palm Theater on Saturday, November 22nd at 7pm. Some of the original racers will be on hand afterwards for audience Q&A. You can buy tickets online or stop by the museum to pick them up. Watch the trailer and learn more about the event/museum after the jump.

While poking around in some comments left at Skate DIY I saw a link to what I thought was spam based on the thumbnail image generated by Facebook, but in fact turned out to have some pretty unique skateboarding terrain built by a company called Gallagher Concrete, located somewhere in SoCal, guessing by the area code. Sure they do bowls and the like, but the stuff that caught my eye could be classified as residential private skateparks. I don’t know who these guys are but it looks like they’ve built some fun terrain. A few more pics and a video after the jump.

Here’s an update from the North County, San Diego project we posted about in January. Coming along. Sold our shirts that you helped track down for me, that got us a half a truck of crete and donations of a truck each by two separate town residents who now see how cool the project is. This snake run style of the park has 5 foot radius trannys and there are will be no freebie grinds handed out… Skates fast and lose legged and every trick is gonna be worked for. First session today was fun! UPDATE: Swapped the bail pic for a make. – Thanks to Ryan Moran for the photos

Ryan Moran sent in pictures of a sanctioned DIY spot in a rural area of North County, San Diego area of California. The community forked over some land behind the ball fields, but it’s up to the skaters to raise the money. They must be doing pretty good because they just had their first pour.

SFGate has posted some pictures in a feature called Four decades of skateboarding in San Francisco. It’s part of their Let’s Go to the Morgue! series where they dig up old photographs from the San Francisco Chronicle. Better versions of the picture, along with a little commentary are on the SFGate blog. The earliest photo dates back to 1964, and the last one is from 1994.

Gizmodo reports on a project from tow MIT researchers called The Big Atlas of LA Pools. It is exactly what it sounds like, a catalog of every single pool, in the Los Angeles basin. It took 74 books and about 6000 pages to show all 43,123 pools with related data, like area, dimensions, water evaporation, lot price, and crime rates of the neighborhoods. No word on on whether those crime rates include trespassing in said pools. These volumes don’t appear to be for sale though, Gizmodo reports the volumes have only been printed once, allegedly at a cost of $3,700. The Big Atlas of LA Pools was not started to incur the wrath or aid a generation of upcoming young Salbas, it was started out of curiosity, after repeatedly noticing pools on approach to LAX. After watching the these videos, check out this 2008 Google Maps screen grab of an airplane flying over a pool on approach to O’hare airport in Chicago. [Via Jim Goodrich on Facebook]

Sometimes I get PR for industry events, and sometimes I take them up on their offer to attend the event under the guise of “covering it,” which usually means I get in free with my kids, and we all enjoy it for the most part. It’s fun, but I’m not paying for it, and I can take it or leave it each time. Sometimes I feel guilty, not for the big corporation, but for the freelance PR agent that gave me the press credentials and got essentially nothing from it. I hope that doesn’t affect your job performance review. To make up for it, here are some photos from the San Francisco stop of the Dew Tour. Thanks to Lorrie Palmos for sending these in. You might remember her from her long standing “Shot of the Week” that’s been up since June. It might be time to retire that part of the web site. (The SOTW curator spot is open!)